If I need one glass of water and I say to you, “Give me one glass of water”, you can give it to me no doubt, but that is second class service. You have freedom and you can understand through your realisation, “Now you need a little water.” If you will serve with your full freedom then that will be very good for the Lord.
Download mp3 audio file. 21 mins, with Italian translation by Krishna Kanta Devi Dasi.
This audio file starts at the beginning of Srila Gurudev’s talk, which is presented in the article Real Friendship.
When Kṛṣṇa mercifully gives His divine rays of mercy upon us, we will understand what is what. Kṛṣṇa is making harmony for everyone, and everyone’s heart, and everything. To make that harmony He is sometimes destroying a little, sometimes making a little, and sometimes making a little adjustment.
yadā yadā hi dharmasya glānir bhavati bhārata
abhyutthānam adharamsya tadātmānaṁ sṛjāmi aham
(Śrīmad Bhagavad-gītā: 4.7)
“When the religious world becomes very disturbed, I Myself manifest there as an incarnation and make harmony as soon as possible, so that it is again running in the line of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.”
But Kṛṣṇa has given us freedom, and He will not take back that freedom. That is His great mercy. If I need one glass of water and I say to you, “Give me one glass of water”, you can give it to me no doubt, but that is second class service. You have freedom and you can understand through your realisation, “Now you need a little water.” If you will serve with your full freedom then that will be very good for the Lord.
Everyone has very good qualities: Kṛṣṇa has given everyone fifty qualities, and more qualities can also come by the grace of Kṛṣṇa. If you merge into the rāga-mārga, then more than Kṛṣṇa’s quality will come to you. But that is so far. What is existing in vidhi-mārga is not a little bit. Everything is possible by our freedom if we use it wisely and properly.
Kṛṣṇa consciousness is like that. Here is love, here is affection, attachment, and hankering for service is the inspiration, and always activated with the devotee. It is not necessary to unnecessarily advise others there. Everyone is doing their own duty. Where some deficiency is seen, it is also created by Yogamāyā for the divine Pastimes of Kṛṣṇa. For the happiness of Kṛṣṇa some deficiency is created by Yogamāyā sometimes, somewhere. But the free will of the devotees is always supplying service for the satisfaction of Lord Kṛṣṇa. That type of world is Goloka Vṛndāvan. Even time is waiting for service. Here time is always passing, and whether you do or don’t do time will pass. But there everything is existing within the mood of service, and so time is also not passing without the inspiration from Yogamāyā. It is written in Brahma-saṁhitā,
sa yatra kṣīrābdhiḥ sravati surabhībhyaś cha sumahān
nimeṣārdhākhyo vā vrajati na hi yatrāpi samayaḥ
(Śrī Brahma-saṁhitā: 5.56)
Half a moment is not passing without service, and without giving inspiration to all for service.
That is the target of our Rūpānuga sampradāya. And that wave, by the grace of Śrī Chaitanya Mahāprabhu, by the grace of Mādhavendra Purī, by the grace of Lord Kṛṣṇa, and our Guru-paramparā, has come down as the wave of the spiritual service world. It is necessary to connect with that wave in any way. Rūpa Goswāmī Prabhu said,
kṛṣṇa-bhakti-rasa-bhāvitā-matiḥ
krīyatāṁ yadi kuto ‘pi labhyate
tatra laulyam api mūlyam ekalaṁ
janma-koṭi-sukṛtair na labhyate
(Padyavali: 14)
[“Purchase ecstatic devotion to Krishna wherever it is available! The only price is hankering. It is not attainable by acting piously (practising vidhi-bhakti) for ten million lifetimes.”]
You can connect with that wave if you have extreme hankering and greed for that.
Spoken by Srila Gurudev in Italy, September 2000.
This is a continuation of Real Friendship
